Queensland union found not guilty of breaching State Government union financial disclosure laws

THE Electrical Trades Union has been found not guilty of breaching the Newman Government’s contentious union financial disclosure laws, in another blow to the legislation.

Just months after Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie had to scrap provisions in the legislation requiring unions to ballot members before spending more than $10,000 on a political campaign, Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan has this morning cleared the Queensland branch of ETU of all 12 charges against it over allegations it had breached other sections of the Act.

Under the laws, introduced by the Newman Government, unions have to publicly display the details of their credit card and political spending as well as loans and grants.

The ETU’s Queensland branch did that via its website www.opposethesefascistlaws.com rather than via the ETU’s website www.etu.org.au.

The government had argued that was in breach of the laws, alleging the union had failed to publish six financial documents on its official website and also failed to produce the documents for departmental inspectors last September.

Ms Callaghan, in her judgment, said: “It is up to the prosecution to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the website www.opposethesefascistlaws.com is not the website for the ETUQ and they have not done this”.

“The prosecution referred to ‘the official’ website of the ETUQ being www.etu.org.au and not www.opposethesefascistlaws.com yet there is nothing in the legislation that refers to ‘the official’ website of an organisation or what that might mean.

“Given all the evidence before me I find that the website www.etu.org.au is not in fact the website of the defendant — the state union.

“The state union may have used it from time to time but on the evidence before me the only website of the state union is www.opposethesefascistlaws.com.”

Ms Callaghan also found there was no proper basis for the department’s inspectors to demand the production of certain documents under the Act, throwing out all charges against the union.

ETUQ state secretary Peter Simpson said the union had been vindicated by the decision.

“The decision basically means just because a government doesn’t like the name of a website www.opposethesefascistlaws.com as long as it complies with the legislation, and it does, they have no leg to stand on, it is a win for the fair go,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we anticipate that he (the Attorney-General) will now waste more of his seemingly unlimited taxpayer-funded bucket of money in appealing today’s decision. We are obviously seeking costs for the money we have had to expend on defending what was clearly a politically motivated case against the Union.”

Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said he was reviewing the decision and would “decide at a later date whether there are grounds for an appeal”.